Life in the fast lane too hot to handle for Reed Buntings

The inaugural meeting of Team Eco-chick took place at Papercourt Marshes on 26th February and involved ringing Reed Buntings at roost. One of the Reed Buntings was already ringed and details have been received today. It was ringed on 27th January 2008 just 5km away at the Mclaren Technology Centre. This is where the Formula One cars are developed and tested but clearly consorting with the likes of Jensen Button was too much for this Reed Bunting and he opted for a quieter life at Papercourt.

Details were also received of a couple of Lesser Redpolls. In the winter of 2010/11 there were thousands of Redpolls on the heaths of Hampshire and West Sussex but this winter there were virtually none. So where did they go this year? Details of birds that I ringed during winter 2010/11 that have been recaught during the last winter are:
Calf of Man Bird Observatory (Isle of Man) on 27th October - presumably still heading south
Chobham Common (Surrey) on 5th November
Copeland Bird Observatory (Northern Ireland) on 13th October - presumably still heading south
Icklesham (East Sussex) on 1st November - probably on migration
Shotley (Suffolk) on 30th October
Dukes Warren (Surrey) on 21st November

Plus the two received today:
Wisley (Surrey) on 6th March
Santes, Nord Region (France) on 2nd November

It is interesting that none of these were re-caught during December to February so we are none the wiser as to where they wintered this year.

Spent a few hours this evening in the New Forest reading colour rings on Wood Warblers. None of the males sang during the whole time I was there; presumably still struggling to feed so not bothering to defend their territories. The highlight was finding the funky longhorn beetle Rhagium mordax on a beech trunk.

The Aaaahhh Factor

Dan and I were joined by two of the eco-chicks for some Tawny Owl ringing this evening. We had two nests to visit. The first was in an old apple tree in Sweet Chestnut coppice. This contained one nestling and an infertile egg. Unfortunately, the hole was too deep to reach the chick but John's ingenuity meant that it was persuaded to sit in an over-sized spoon so that it could be extracted from the hole!

Nice nails Jess!

The second nest was in an incredibly decrepit dead pine. Each year I think the tree won't last till the following spring but it's still there. This nest also contained a single chick but then we noticed a dead chick on the ground by the tree. This was older than the live one and had presumably got a bit adventurous and fallen out of the hole. The presence of the dead rodents next to the chick shows that the parents tried to keep feeding it.

I've seen a ghost!

No, I'm not losing the plot. The ghost in question is the White-footed Ghost Dolichopeza albipes. The white feet actually show up really well when it is flying in gloomy woodland. I've seen several this spring in the New Forest and suspected it was this species but this was the first I have managed to catch and bring home to check against the keys.

Earlier in the day I had been sea watching at Milford shelter. I hate sea watching because that's exactly what it is; watching the sea. Not watching seabirds, just the sea. This session was little better than normal, with just a few Gannets and a single Fulmar. The exception was a group of five Pomarine Skuas, all pale phase with full spoons, that had settled on the sea to the west just before I arrived and then spent the next couple of hours drifting east on the currents. They were close inshore as they drifted towards us and I hoped for a rare chance of a photo but just before they reached us they flew further out, resulting in.....

.... possibly the worst bird photo ever! You can just see two blobs just left of centre. The other 3 must have been in the trough of a wave at the time.

Effects of the weather

There isn't much good to be said about the weather at the moment but the flooding at Keyhaven means that there is very little habitat for most waders to feed around the lagoons and todays Wood Sandpiper was therefore forced to feed at extremely close range, enabling this photo to be taken.

It's not often that I get a photo of a bird that I'm actually proud of!

The Garganey from yesterday were still around but this time I saw all three and actually heard them call; something I don't recall hearing before. They weren't asleep all the time but none of my photo's when they were feeding are much good.

After the diversion to twitch the Wood Sand (my 200th species of bird in Hampshire this year), I headed into the New Forest to change the frass traps and sticky traps that I put out last Sunday. In the event, there was no point changing any of the frass traps as none of them contained any frass at all. The sticky traps were also enlightening, the photo below shows a typical example.

So that is all that has been attracted in a whole week in quality deciduous woodland. What on earth are the insectivorous birds eating at the moment?

A non-race bird race

Traditionally at this time of year we take part in the Hampshire bird race. You know the sort of thing, 22 hours without sleep, rubbish weather and missing all sorts of stupid things. This year one third of the team had to work and the other two thirds couldn't be bothered so instead we had a more leasurely days birding around Hampshire, aiming mainly to pick up the migrants that we hadn't seen this year.

We started off at Keyhaven where the previous days Glossy Ibis had kindly decided to stay for another day. Initially it was asleep and obscured by vegetation but after we'd been for a wander round it was more cooperative.

Also in the area were 3 Garganey (2 drakes & a duck) and large numbers of Whimbrel, a selection of which are shown below.

One of the more interesting observations was all the hirundines sitting in gorse and bramble early in the morning. Presumably it was so cold and miserable that there wasn't any point wasting energy flying around looking for non-existent food. After a typical Hampshire sea-watch (rubbish) we headed inland with stops for Goshawk & Wood Warbler in the Forest and Little Ringed Plover.

We then went to a place I've never visited before; Casbrook Common. The site seems to be a former landfill site and like many 'brownfield' sites, is actually more interesting than 'pristine' countryside. Here we had a smart female Ring Ouzel, two Whinchat, Garden Warbler and 4 Nightingales, one of which showed quite well.

Last stop was the downs where we got good distant views of a pair of Stone Curlews. As we were driving up the hill away from the site we were stunned to see a Short-eared Owl sitting on a post by the side of the road. What is that still doing here?

With thanks to Gilbert's brother for all the photo's except the Nightingale (you probably guessed that they were too in focus to be mine).

A slight improvement

Went to Chiddingfold Forest this afternoon for a meeting. Lots of Nightingales in some areas, at one point I could hear 6 singing at one time. Although there were still some areas where they normally occur where none were heard. Last night I had a look at the BTO's Birdtrack pages. It's not normally something I look at because whether things have arrived 3 days earlier or 5 days later than last year is of little interest to me. However it was interesting to compare the current situation for various migrants; some such as Nightingale appeared to be arriving pretty much as normal but others such as Willow Warbler, Whitethroat and Tree Pipit are in very poor numbers. Earlier this spring I heard that there was concern that drought in the Sahel might significantly affect the numbers of migrants making it back this year. So it the current situation due to the awful weather here or is there going to be an early-1970's type crash in populations of some species due to Sahel drought? Time will tell.

The slight improvement in weather today meant that there were a few insects around. Plenty of St Mark's Flies resting on the bushes plus a few of the common longhorn moth Adela reaumurella. A couple of shieldbugs that I photographed were Hawthorn Shieldbug:

and Green Shieldbug:

On the way back I stopped in at Hindhead Common. It's quite strange to actually be able to hear birdsong there, now that the A3 tunnel is open. It was good to see a pair of Cuckoos there with another calling further down the slope. This area used to be very reliable for Cuckoos but I haven't see any there for a couple of years. Hopefully they will be back in good numbers this year. The following record shot shows the limitations of my bird photography.